Monthly Archives: August 2017

Still feeling the effects of a sprained ankle, Odell Beckham Jr. sat out the Giants’ practice Monday, but coach Ben McAdoo told reporters he is improving.

With the season opener still almost two weeks away, McAdoo told reporters he’s “hopeful” the wide receiver will be healthy enough to play in Week 1 against the Cowboys.

Meanwhile, the Giants got some good news Monday, as veteran wideout Brandon Marshall returned for limited participation in practice. He injured his shoulder Aug. 21 in the Week 2 preseason game against the Browns and had been sidelined since.

Beckham injured his left ankle in the same game.

Gil Brandt, the former Cowboys personnel guru now working as a SiriusXM NFL Radio host and NFL.com analyst, reported last week that Beckham was set to begin a series of laser treatments on his ankle.

The officers wore “#imwithkap” T-shirts and talked and sang in support of the quarterback and his efforts to find another team in the NFL. Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers this spring, but his politicial activism, most notably his decision to kneel during the national anthem before games last season, has reportedly made several teams wary of signing him.

While most of the officers at the rally were African-American or other minorities, one notable exception was 81-year-old former NYPD officer Frank Serpico, whose whistle-blowing efforts on corruption in the department inspired the 1973 Al Pacino movie “Serpico.”

“I am here to support anyone who has the courage to stand up against injustice and oppression anywhere in this country and the world,” Serpico told the New York Daily News.

The Warriors are bringing back who they can. After re-signing Shaun Livingston to a three-year deal, Golden State has agreed on a one-year deal with veteran forward David West, according to NBA.com’s David Aldridge.

The contract for the 2017-18 season will be his last, as retirement looms next summer.

West joined the Warriors last summer after a failed season with the Spurs preceded an illustrious tenure with both the Indiana Pacers and the then-called New Orleans Hornets. A bruiser who made his name setting bone-crushing screens and as a pick-and-pop mid-range shooter, West boasts career averages of 14 points and 6.6 rebounds on near 50 percent field goal shooting.Elite Youth John Tavares Jersey
To recap, Cleveland lost its general manager and then lowballed and eventually lost Chauncey Billups as team president. The Cavs agreed to trade Iman Shumpert to the Rockets only for Houston to pivot and sign P.J. Tucker. They didn’t draft anyone in the deepest class this decade, missed on both Jimmy Butler and Paul George, then missed in free agency — their only signings were Jeff Green, Jose Calderon and Turkish rookie Cedi Osman.Elite Youth Kevin Greene Jersey
Now Kyrie Irving’s requested a trade, and the team looks in shambles. Still, LeBron will stand pat. He’s not going to bail on the city to which he brought its first-ever NBA championship.

No matter where you stand on The King, you’ve got to respect his nobility, not wanting to ditch his squad midway.

So instead of leaving Chris Webber (back from injury and mighty expensive) or Doug Christie unprotected, the Kings chose their youngest asset, Wallace. The Alabamian hadn’t been anything special for the Kings, other than as a dunker. His third season — the one preceding the expansion draft — was actually quite bad. Wallace spent most of his time in Sacramento on the bench. To lose him in the expansion draft a year before he hit restricted free agency did not seem like a crippling loss.

Authentic Kids Ibraheim Campbell Jersey The Kings traded Webber and Christie for spare parts within months. They eventually moved other protected players Brad Miller and Mike Bibby in salary cap dumps years later after a failed retooling around Ron Artest. The Kings would win three total playoff games in the 13 years (and counting) following that expansion draft.

Wallace and Okafor were, for better or worse, the faces of Charlotte for the better part of the decade. And the Bobcats essentially got them both in the expansion draft. How magical!

Brian Urlacher Game Jersey Where an expansion team is added partially depends on ownership groups that actually bid on these locations. If a pitch falls short, or if there’s no one wanting to invest in a certain place, the NBA can’t force it to happen.

Still, as mentioned above, everyone wants a piece of the NBA right now. SB Nation’s Tom Ziller ranked 13 potential locations for a new franchise, ranging from Vancouver to Louisville to a second Chicago team. Most of those would have investors available to bid on and finance an expansion team, assuming the NBA approves it.

Elite Womens Alexander Mogilny Jersey LeBron James’ extremely lit summer of 2017 continued on Saturday night when he was a DJ in Miami. The King was seen singing along to Pitbull’s Fireball, Travis Scott’s Goosebumps, and more behind the DJ booth.

LeBron is at this great stage in his life where he’d be the perfect block party host. He’s a dad who can play the classics, but also still goes to work with a ton of youths and can bump the latest hits. What I’m saying is I’d hire DJ LeBron James.

The NBA offseason continues to be a beautifully unpredictable disaster of golden events. Kyrie Irving still wants out of Cleveland. Steph Curry ripped on LeBron’s Instagram workout videos at Harrison Barnes’ wedding. And now we have summer LeBron, who refuses to let any of the noise disrupt him on a magical summer of him doing whatever the heck he wants.

Political protest in sports following the Civil Rights Era came frequently: Muhammad Ali nearly lost his career and freedom protesting the Vietnam War, Jim Brown held the Ali Summit and created the Negro Industrial and Economic Union, Craig Hodges handed a letter to the president outlining racial inequality, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand during the anthem, and Toni Smith-Thompson turned her back to the flag while the anthem played for every game of her senior basketball season.Elite Womens Robert Griffin III Jersey
One of the more recent stands was the University of Missouri’s 2015 protests against campus discrimination. One student went on a hunger strike until other black students’ issues were resolved. The football team decided it wouldn’t practice or play until high-ranking officials resigned.

The next day: The president and chancellor quit. It was a shining moment that showed the power athletes had in political discourse.

Every lover of Chick-fil-A knows that Sunday pain. The crushing reality when you crave a chicken sandwich and remember that it’s Sunday and the restaurant isn’t open. It feels like every Sunday is when you want Chick-fil-A the most, and it’s never there for you. Falcons fans are about to be reminded of this every single week of the NFL season.

The exact amount that the Buccaneers and two other teams added wasn’t revelaed, but the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce committed $70,000 to the relocation of the monument on Thursday. Bob Gries, former owner of arena football team the Tampa Bay Storm, also added $50,000.

With the $140,000 goal easily reached, the plan is to relocate the monument to a small private family cemetery in Brandon, Fla. about 12 miles away from its current location.

The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville over the weekend that descended into violence was organized as a protest of the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park in the city. On Saturday, a car drove into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19.

Efforts to remove and relocate other Confederate monuments and statues have ramped up in the days since the Charlottesville rally, and the Buccaneers have joined that endeavor.

If your offense is struggling, Seattle is one of the last places you want to be. The Seahawks’ Legion of Boom defense has reunited for 2017, pairing Pro Bowlers like Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, and Michael Bennett together to form one of the league’s most explosive units. Though Seattle’s defensive efficiency fell last season — thanks in part to the broken leg that kept Thomas off the field late in the year — the team was still a top-five squad.

Game Youth Drew Brees Jersey The NHL will not take a break from its 2017-18 regular season to allow players to participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics, the league announced Monday.

While commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners have been increasingly vocal in their opposition to continuing the practice of an Olympic break, players had held out hope a compromise might be reached. But no such deal is forthcoming.

In an effort to create clarity among conflicting reports and erroneous speculation, this will confirm our intention to proceed with finalizing our 2017-18 regular season schedule without any break to accommodate the Olympic Winter Games, the NHL said in a statement released Monday. We now consider the matter officially closed.

Officials briefly reviewed the winning goal to see if Crosby interfered with Grubauer, but they ruled he did not.

Pittsburgh trailed 3-0 before scoring six goals in a span of less than 11 minutes in the second period.

The goal that started the onslaught, scored by Evgeni Malkin 6:28 into the period, was the first 5-on-5 goal allowed by the Capitals in nearly 299 minutes of even-strength ice time. Malkin scored twice more for the 11th hat trick of his career. Washington had allowed a combined three goals in its last six games.

Crosby netted his 27th goal this season to go with three assists, bringing his season point total to 50, tied with Connor McDavid for the NHL lead.

Mens Preston Brown Jersey Sheary also had a three-point night (two goals, one assist) as Pittsburgh snapped out of its three-game losing skid.

Derek Jeter is probably, almost certainly, going to get to run a baseball team. According to reports, Jeffrey Loria has chosen the former Yankees’ player to be the new owners of the Marlins.

While there’s no clear sign that Jeter will be either incredibly good or extremely bad at running a team, that doesn’t mean people don’t have thoughts about the transfer of power in Miami.

First of all, how did the Player’s Tribune (a site that Jeter founded) possibly miss out on this scoop?

There better be a Yeah Jeets T-Shirt giveaway at some point in their inaugural season or the team will be mired in mediocrity forever. That’s definitely how cause and effect works.

St. Louis managed to send every one of their players across the plate in the 8th before recording a single out, absolutely crushing Chicago in the end.Game Womens Nolan Ryan Jersey
It all started innocently enough, with the Cubs walking in a run and offering up the slightest of hints that the bullpen might be bending but not yet breaking. Then the bending stopped and the breaking started. And kept going, and going, and going.

Houston also announced it will be calling up Colin Moran from AAA to take Correa’s roster spot, so one silver lining is that the 24-year old will hopefully take advantage of these reps in the big leagues (he’s played nine games to date in the majors) over the next few months.Game Womens Reilly Smith Jersey
If there was a scout who signed off on Slocumb’s arm, he should have felt bad relatively soon after. While he wasn’t too bad for the Mariners for the rest of the season (4.13 ERA, and just 41 runners allowed in 28 innings), there were still dozens and dozens of red flags, even if the prospects they traded away never panned out.

Ty Sambrailo Game Jersey The Dodgers are currently 92-8. I’m not looking that up, but it sounds right, so let’s all save some time and just go with it. And because they have a .920 winning percentage, they would be excused for sitting the trade deadline out. They’re already set at several positions. They can weather the Clayton Kershaw injury and still win the NL West by 20 games without doing a thing.

Marcus Gilbert Game Jersey And that might not even be the best part, because the Rangers can sign Darvish back — and that’s also reportedly their plan. This isn’t a Jon Lester and the Red Sox situation, where Darvish was disgusted by low-ball offers and was always going to be gone whether he was traded or not. Darvish has expressed a desire to stay in Texas, and when he has the chance to do so, Texas is going to have Willie Calhoun in it. There won’t be any compensation necessary for re-signing Darvish, as he was traded midseason and is ineligible for that status, so the Rangers can call up him when free agency begins and negotiate with him, just like they would have if they had held onto him.

The difference is that now when they do it, they’ll also have Calhoun, Alexy, and Davis in the organization. Picking up a trio of prospects with potential and still having a chance at Darvish is worth more than what two months of negotiating before free agency was going to get the Rangers, especially given that there was almost no chance he would have avoided free agency when he was this close to it.

My working theory is this: At the end of 2014, Beltre was a Hall of Famer. He had 395 home runs, Brooks Robinson-like defense, a Let’s-Play-Two infectiousness that was driving the internet wild, and the longevity to get him in before he fell off the ballot.

Cam Newton has taken another positive step forward in his rehabilitation.

The Panthers quarterback resumed throwing once again during drills at the team’s workout on Sunday after resting his shoulder the last five days, Max Henson of the team’s official site reported.

Coach Todd Bowles said he isn’t sure whether Whitehead will need surgery, but the break is significant enough to have Whitehead sidelined for considerable time.

“I don’t know if he’s out for the year, but I know he’s out for a little while,” Bowles said.

Whitehead has had an interesting offseason, to say the least. The former Cowboys player first made headlines when he said his puppy, Blitz was being held for ransom.

The dog was returned the next day, but not after bizarre claims that a rapper supposedly had the dog and wanted $20,000 for him.

Less than a month later, a warrant was issued for Whitehead’s arrest for allegedly stealing $40 worth of items from a convenience store in Virginia, even though Whitehead said he wasn’t in the area at the time.

“I support him, I support his movement, I support Colin Kaepernick, I support all the guys, Angela Davis, all the people that came before us to pave the way for what we’re trying to do in the black community,” Martellus Bennett said, via ESPN. “I support everybody and always will. I always will be very pro black, I guess would be the term to say.”

While coach Seahawks Pete Carroll said he believes in Michael Bennett’s rights, he said he preferred everyone to stand for the anthem. Carroll tried to unify the team last season by having everyone stand together and link arms, a sign of both respect and understanding.

However, Baldwin said he not only supports Michael Bennett, but is considering joining him.

Lackey wouldn’t go as far as comparing Contreras to his former catcher Yadier Molina because of his year-plus in the majors, yet he said the talent is similar. The Abilene, Texas native pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals from July 2014 through 2015 before signing with their division rivals in the next offseason.

Kids Zemgus Girgensons Jersey Borzello added that the organization uses Molina as the benchmark for its catchers, given his abundance of prowess at the position. He ranks third among catchers in league history with eight gold gloves, behind Hall of Famers Ivan Rodriguez and Johnny Bench.

On top of that, Lackey hasn’t been afraid to showcase his intensified emotions during his 14-plus years in the majors. He said he enjoys how Contreras does the same, especially after a big strikeout or one of his sniper-like pickoffs.

I feel like I’m in the heart of the team, Contreras told CSN Chicago. I’m behind the plate. I just want to play with my energy, no matter if I hit or not. We need that energy for the second half. And it’s going to be there.

Zimmerman ended the day a triple short of the cycle but managed to record four hits on 11 pitches seen, so he’s excused for not getting that triple. The 32-year-old Virginia product has spent his entire career with the Nationals, but failed to play in more than 115 games each of the last three seasons.

Kids Max Garcia Jersey He had not hit 20 home runs since 2013 and hasn’t eclipsed 90 RBIs since 2012. He already has 24 homers this year to go with 76 runs driven in as a 30 homer/100 RBI season for the first time since 2009 seems very much a possibility.